While “All the Wisdom I Got Left” continues most of the sub-plots Banshee has set up this season, the success of the episode will ultimately come down to how it handles Chayton Littlestone in the eyes of viewers.
Though the infiltration of Camp Genoa exists as a superb feat in and of itself, it also highlights the episode’s biggest concern: showing the strength of teamwork.
“Bullets and Tears” makes the best case possible for why Rabbit’s presence this season has at least been important in helping develop the relationship between the man known as Lucas Hood (or Tom Palmer, as he would have been known in another life) and Anastasia.
Penultimate episodes in a season of television usually suffer from over-reliance on exposition, because that’s just how they function. It’s something totally excusable, because these episodes are meant to build up to the big bang of the finale, which – if any show on TV right now could pull off – Banshee should be able to deliver with an exclamation.
One series, though, is leading the charge at the beginning of the year. The most unlikely of heroes, Cinemax’s Banshee, in just a matter of three weeks, has matured into something truly special – something a lot of TV writers refer to as “appointment viewing” when describing other series.
It didn’t take long for Banshee to return to its hyper-sexualized roots after turning in a much more reserved season opener last week. But you know what? Who cares?
Even if the characters in this series don’t reach beyond the tropes they stem from, they’re all a part of the cog that makes Banshee run so well, at least since the back half of its first season. So, when “Little Fish” begins and you get a huge portion of the episode devoted to doing right by those characters and the events they faced last year rather than piling on action and sex scenes, a sigh of relief runs through you if you were one of the people who actually got around to seeing Banshee and accepting it on its own terms.